NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio — When you drop something into the mail, you expect it to go where you want it to go.
But that hasn’t been the case for dozens of people in North Royalton who have been dealing with mail fraud for months, dating back to the first reports in early July, and as recently as this week.
“I read one on the log for my patrol shift last night and thought, 'oh, there’s another one,'” said North Royalton Police Sgt. Flo Ann Rybicki.
Rybicki tells News 5 that the scheme is fairly simple: people are stealing checks from one particular mailbox, changing them up and cashing them using mobile banking apps or ATMs.
“If you look at these checks, you’d be like, no way am I cashing these checks, that’s how obvious they are to a human being,” she said.
The mailbox in question is right on busy State Road, right in front of the North Royalton Post Office.
Police said that since early July, they have received more than 40 reports of checks being stolen, altered, and in many cases, cashed. The total loss amount is upwards of $150,000 and climbing.
Police report after police report shows that in some cases, the banks are catching the fraud before the checks are cashed. But more often than not, the criminals are getting away with it.
A $20 donation to the March of Dimes turned into $4,600, resulting in an overdrawn account.
A 64-year-old woman’s $100 check was altered to $8,200. She didn’t realize it until the bank told her the account was overdrawn when she tried paying other bills.
Walter Kriz is another one of those victims.
He wrote a $720 check for his RITA taxes and dropped it into the drive-up mailbox when he had COVID.
Then found out weeks later that $720 had been turned into $8,000 and cashed out of his account.
“The money's gone, and that’s what it looks like,” Kriz said, showing a copy of the cashed check. The "pay to" line has someone’s name on it, where he wrote for "taxes," it now says "GIFT."
“It doesn’t even look real. It looks like a Kindergartener did it,” Kriz said.
Rybicki agrees, saying the fraud they are seeing is not sophisticated at all.
“They are primitive — whiting out, writing over numbers, scratching out information, original information, writing in their own stuff in and being cashed to accounts that are not owned by these people,” Rybicki said.
Kriz has been told by his bank PNC that he will eventually get his money back, but it’s going to take months while the investigation unfolds.
“Yeah I gotta wait four months so I’m out $8,000 for four months,” Kriz said. That’s not doable for so many people.
“I’m fortunate enough I can, but not everybody can. A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck — how are they gonna pay for things now like food and medicine and everyday needs?” Kriz asked.
Police say there are multiple people involved in this fraud and their investigation is bringing them closer to finding out who.
For now, they’re asking people to walk their mail into the post office instead of using the drive-up box outside.
Police also said they’ve been asking for help from the Postal Service for months with no real response.
We reached out to the FBI and US Postal Inspection Services and were told it’s an active, ongoing investigation so they can’t comment specifically, but that these blue box thefts are a recent trend impacting several cities across Northeast Ohio. They would not clarify how many cities or boxes have been impacted.
We were also told by USPS investigators that the collection box in front of the North Royalton Post Office that has been targeted so many times will not be shut down or relocated.
Below is the full statement from USPS:
The US Postal Inspection Service is aware of the recent trend in blue box thefts in Northern Ohio and is actively working several investigations with the assistance from our local law enforcement partners. As these are active investigations, the Inspection Service cannot provide specifics regarding these matters (to include whether each instance is a part of an active investigation), as to not jeopardize the integrity of the cases.
The Inspection Service appreciates the great cooperation and partnership with our local law enforcement partners and can provide the below example of the great coordination and success in working these cases.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndoh/pr/11-northeast-ohio-charged-bank-fraud-and-stealing-us-mail
If anyone has any information related to the blue collection box thefts, please contact the US Postal Inspection Service at 877-876-2455. Any information will be kept confidential.
